


Wild Horses

by aceofhearts61



Category: True Detective
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Domestic Fluff, Drinking, Emotional Conversations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Marijuana, Other, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Kissing, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 14:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18283901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts61/pseuds/aceofhearts61
Summary: Wayne and Roland's romantic friendship over the years, basically. Complex feelings and physical intimacy. These dudes don't know what's going on between them, but they roll with it.





	Wild Horses

**Author's Note:**

> The title's taken from the song "Wild Horses" by The Flying Burrito Brothers, which I think is a good theme song for this fic.

November, 1978

* * *

They’re standing around outside their office building for what they think is a fire drill, every cop and staff member present in the employee parking lot, the uniformed guys blanketing the space with blue. People have already started smoking, Wayne and Roland included, and the noise of everybody talking in small clusters almost drowns out the sound of the frantic alarm bell.

“Fire drill,” Wayne grumbles. “What is this, grade school?”

“Betcha it was some dumbass with a cigarette inside,” says Roland, tapping the ash off his own Marlboro. “A rookie.”   

BOOM!

A marked police cruiser parked on the edge of the lot explodes in a fireball, sending metal shards and glass and white dust in all directions. The force of the blast rocks the ground from one end of the lot to the other, like an earthquake. Everybody drops into a crouch or jumps back reflexively.

Wayne and Roland are well outside the blast radius, but they still look at each other with a wild fear in their eyes for a second, reaching for each other and making contact.

The herd of cops, both uniformed and plainclothes, scramble, some of them heading right for the burning car and the men nearest the blast. Most of them look around for someone higher ranking to direct them. Everybody’s shouting, cursing. The fire alarm is still ringing over the sound of the flames and the voices.   

Wayne hears a gunshot that nobody else seems to register. He looks around for the source of the sound, wondering if he imagined it or misinterpreted.

But then a man several paces away from him and Roland calls out “Officer down! Office down!”

Another shot rings out, unmistakable this time, and a second man falls.

For the next couple minutes, complete pandemonium breaks out. People running, people ducking for cover, cops brandishing their side arms and searching the sky for the invisible shooter, an unclear number of victims dropping and other cops surrounding them in response.

Roland’s crouched low with his back against a car door, holding his gun in front of his chest, looking freaked out. Wayne finds him, frantic for the seconds they were separated after Roland bolted for cover, squatting next to him without his gun in hand.

“Holy fuck,” Roland says. “What do we do?”

“We need to get inside,” says Wayne. “Now.”

Some people have already started heading for the doors, but Wayne can’t see from his current position if they’ve all made it or some have been shot on the way. Somebody needs to call 911 and get the paramedics on the scene. Somebody needs to find the shooter if he’s on the roof or in an upper story window of the building.

“I don’t know if we can make it all the way over there,” Roland tells Wayne, shaking his head and looking genuinely scared for the first time since they met. Clutching his weapon like it’s a life raft. 

In a flash of understanding and clarity, Wayne realizes why his partner’s freezing up while he isn’t and that he’ll have to lead them out of this clusterfuck. Wayne’s got plenty of experience with being shot at, thanks to his time in the war. Roland, though he was enlisted and stationed overseas, didn’t see action. He hasn’t been desensitized to this level of life-threatening violence.

Wayne grips Roland’s shoulder and says, “Look, we can’t stay here. The longer we stay where we are, the greater chance we have of getting shot. We need to make a run for the building, Roland. Put your gun back in the holster, move as fast as you can, and keep your arm raised above your head. All right?”

Roland nods and holsters his gun with uneven coordination, his eyes never leaving Wayne’s.

Wayne moves toward the front end of the car and peeps his head above the hood, eyeing the path to the nearest entrance of the building. The gunfire hasn’t stopped, though it’s not rapid. It sounds like the shooter is picking his targets deliberately. He’s not spraying the parking lot. He’s doing his best to take people out one by one.

Wayne scoots back over to Roland, who looks like he’s about to piss his pants. “Gimme your hand,” Wayne says.

Roland slips his right hand into Wayne’s left.

“On three,” says Wayne. “One. Two. Three.”

He jumps up on his feet and starts running for the door, pulling Roland with him and not stopping to check if the shorter man can actually keep up with his pace. They sprint from the car across half a dozen yards of concrete, past people whose faces they don’t pay attention to. All Wayne can see is that door. He hears the gunshots but he refuses to be distracted by them.

He touches the door, almost slamming into it, and only then does he look behind him at Roland, who’s panting and squeezing Wayne’s hand like it’s the only thing between him and death.

They go inside, the noise of the chaos in the parking lot suddenly muffled behind the closed door. A new sound emerges—sirens.   

They’re at the bottom of a stairwell. The door into the ground floor is right there across from the one leading outside. Instead of rushing into the lobby, they take a minute to rest from the escape, bodies buzzing with adrenaline.

“You all right?” Wayne says.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Roland. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” Wayne looks down at himself, then back up at Roland, wide-eyed.

“Jesus.” Roland sags against the wall, shaking. “Jesus Christ.”

Wayne realizes he’s shaking too. He can’t control it. That hasn’t happened since he was a twenty-year-old kid on his way to his first reconnaissance assignment.

On pure impulse, he takes Roland’s face in both his hands and kisses him just above the bridge of his nose, then on his lips. He can’t tell if his own lips are trembling.   

Roland just looks up at him with an unreadable expression. He doesn’t move away or push Wayne off him. He doesn’t react at all.

Then, Wayne’s hands fall away from him, and Wayne swings his body around to rest against the wall too. Hands on his thighs, head bowed, panting.

Roland grips Wayne’s bicep and just stands there, as if anchoring Wayne and himself.   

* * *

 August, 1979

* * *

 

They’re rolling joints in the backseat of Roland’s car, parked in the empty lot of a junkyard at nine o’clock on a Friday night. The engine’s off but the battery’s on, so they can listen to music on the radio. They’re already mildly drunk, empty beer bottles littering the ground outside. Roland shines his flashlight over Wayne’s lap, as the taller man rolls his own joint on the flat surface of his Arkansas State Road Map book. Once he’s finished, Roland kills the light, and they sit back into the seat, side by side, their knees spread wide. Smoke quickly fills the car, the pungent smell of marijuana destined to lace the upholstery and their clothes for days. Sooner or later, they’ll have to roll down the windows to let out some of the heat generated by the smoke.

They cough a few times in between hits, letting the high start to wash over them without speaking.

“Boy, that is some good shit,” says Wayne, grinning.

“Ain’t it?” Roland says, looking at the joint in his fingers. “Only thing more disappointing than warm beer is bad weed.”

“Mmm. I hear that.”

“By the way, I got a bottle of SoCo in the trunk for later.”

“Right on, brother.”

Roland takes another draw on his joint, and Wayne follows him. The air’s white with smoke wafting up against the ceiling of the cab like a trapped ghost.

“Hey, Wayne,” says Roland. “You believe in aliens?”

Wayne chuckles and smiles open-mouthed. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“No, I’m really asking.”

“Do I believe in aliens….,” Wayne murmurs under his breath. “I should feel offended you even asked.”

“Don’t you remember a few years back, those four guys up in Maine or somewheres went camping and said they were abducted by a UFO?”

Wayne gives him a dismissive wave and sucks on his half-finished joint.

“Then, there was another group in Kentucky that same year, I think,” Roland continues. “Women.”

“It’s all bullshit, man,” says Wayne. “Come on now.”

“How do you know it’s bullshit? You ain’t questioned those people. Why would they lie? They gotta know most people are going to think they’re crazy. It’s not like they have anything to gain.”

“Sure, they do. Attention. Fuckin fifteen minutes of fame on the local news and shit.”

“Listen, you can’t prove that aliens _aren’t_ real. That’s all I’m saying. You believe in god?”

“I don’t know. I guess so. I was raised in the church.”

“Most people were. And they can’t prove god exists any more than they can prove aliens exist, but they believe in god. They act like god’s an obvious fact. Like the sun. No proof whatsoever. I don’t see how you can be sure god exists but aliens don’t at the same time.”

“Why the fuck are we talking about aliens?” says Wayne.

“You got something else you wanna talk about?” Roland replies.

In the pause where Wayne doesn’t answer, they both hear the chorus for Steve Miller’s “Space Cowboy” start on the radio. They burst into laughter, leaning against the car doors, cracking up so hard they can’t even hear the rest of the song.

“Motherfuckin space cowboy,” says Wayne, wiping tears from his eyes. “Jesus.”

“I’d love to wear some cowboy boots on the fuckin moon,” Roland says. “How badass would that be?”

Wayne starts laughing again, and then Roland’s going too.

“Man, we are high, aren’t we?” says Roland, once they calm down. He looks at the stub of his joint in his fingers.

“You think?” Wayne says, looking over at Roland with half-lidded eyes.

“What I think is, it’s time for some good, old-fashioned Southern Comfort.”

“Here we go…”

Roland stumbles out of the car, letting a plume of smoke out with him, and goes around to the trunk. He retrieves the liquor bottle, still sucking on the last of his joint, and surveys the lot around him for any unexpected company. They’re still totally alone.

He pauses before getting back into the car, looking up at the night sky and wondering about UFOs.

Wayne’s rolling his window down when Roland joins him again in the back seat, so Roland rolls his window down too, just halfway. They flick the extinguished joint butts outside and start passing the bottle of SoCo back and forth. After a few passes, the bottle ends up with Roland, and he keeps it planted on his thigh, slouching down into his half of the bench seat and staring into space. Wayne holds the same pose next to him.

“You know, we haven’t caught anything good in too long,” Wayne says. “Can’t a motherfucker murder somebody already?”

“That’s a fucked up way of saying you’re bored, man,” Roland replies.

“Honesty is supposed to be one of the perks of this relationship. When it comes to the job, anyway.”

“You’re just wasted right now. You don’t actually want some poor asshole to get killed.” Roland takes another drink, then screws the cap back on the bottle, after locating it on the seat between him and Wayne.

“Plenty of bad guys in the world,” says Wayne. “I wouldn’t mind if one of them got murdered.”

“Guess I can’t argue with that.” Roland finishes the sentence on a sigh and shuts his eyes. He’s at that level of intoxication where he can’t tell if he’s tired or just really relaxed. Either way, he feels like staying put until further notice.

“Hey, Roland.”

“Yeah,” Roland replies and opens his eyes to look at Wayne.

Wayne’s looking at him with something in his eyes Roland hasn’t seen before. Then, without warning, he leans over and finds Roland’s lips with his own. He looks into Roland’s eyes without pulling back, their faces close enough that they can feel the heat of each other’s breath, and Roland doesn’t know what the hell is happening. Yeah, there was that kiss last year, after the police car bombing, but that was not like this.

Now, the look in Wayne’s eyes is earnest and just a little bit afraid. “Sorry,” he says. “I should’ve asked first. If it was okay.”

Roland swallows. “Are you trying to fuck me right now?” he says.

Wayne blinks. “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“I don’t know if I’m cool with that, man. I’ve never been with another guy.”

“Me neither. I don’t know if I want to do that. I just felt like kissing you.” Wayne sits back in his seat, the space between them materializing again. “Sorry. I’m high. And drunk. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

After thinking about it for a moment, Roland reaches out and lays his hand on Wayne’s thigh, just above the knee. Wayne looks at him. Roland scoots over until he’s right up against the other man and kisses him softly.

“Maybe we can just kiss,” Roland says. “I think I’m all right with that.”

Wayne gives him the smallest nod, his eyes shining with emotion.

Roland twists his body toward Wayne and lifts his hand to the side of Wayne’s face, cupping the other man’s cheek with a touch so light it betrays his uncertainty. He presses a kiss to Wayne’s lips, feeling his heart swell with affection, and they close their eyes, flutter them back open, close them again when Roland follows his first kiss with a second.

And then something crests and breaks in Wayne, and he wraps his arm around Roland’s back, clawing his fingers into his partner’s shirt, and kisses him like he needs him. Roland almost recoils, there’s so much strength in the move, but Wayne holds him close, looks into Roland’s eyes with their noses still almost brushing, and lifts his free hand to caress Roland’s hair.

Roland has to take a breath while Wayne will let him, and he can feel his chest moving against Wayne’s warm body. He’s still got his own hand around the back of Wayne’s neck, and Wayne cups his jaw, the side of his skull. Roland’s got him backed into the corner, almost in Wayne’s lap, and he has no idea what he’s feeling right now except a rush of adrenaline and emotion.

Wayne, meanwhile, almost feels like he’s watching himself from outside his body. He’s caught between freezing in fear of what this means and running with it because it feels so right.

They just look at each other for what feels like hours, tangled together, the smell of marijuana in the car mingling with the whiskey on their breath. The radio’s still playing music, but they don’t register it.

Roland slides his hand down from Wayne’s neck and strokes his side, just wanting to feel him and express some kind of comfort or encouragement or something. He hopes whatever Wayne can see in his eyes is true. Wayne swallows, shuts his eyes, almost shakes his head.

“You hard right now?” he says, his voice strange.

“Barely,” Roland replies. “You?”

“Little bit. But I really don’t think—I don’t think I want sex.”

“Me neither. But this—” Roland stops because he doesn’t even know what he wants to say.

“Yeah,” says Wayne, reading him. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

Wayne kisses Roland, and Roland just lets go, wrapping his arms around Wayne, opening his mouth just a little when Wayne opens his. Wayne runs his hand down the length of Roland’s back, and it makes Roland shiver. Wayne breaks the kiss to hug Roland closer to him, and for a moment, they rest there, holding each other, catching their breath. Their high is wearing off, leaving only drunkenness behind, and both men feel like they’re shrouded in warm gauze.

Roland presses a kiss to Wayne’s neck, and that sends a shock through Wayne.

“Mmm,” he says, closing his eyes, as he starts to rub Roland’s upper back with one hand, mimicking Roland stroking his side.

Roland takes the sound as encouragement and gives Wayne’s neck a series of little kisses, smelling faded cologne on his skin.

“I dig the back rub,” says Roland, then kisses Wayne just below his ear. “Can’t remember the last time a woman did that.”

“Don’t talk about women right now,” says Wayne, doing his best to push away any sobering fears about his sexuality. He’s still got his right hand curled into Roland’s shirt at the middle of his back.

“You as lonely as I think you are?”

“Yes. Yes, God damn it.”

Roland pulls away just enough to look at Wayne in the eye and rest his hand over Wayne’s heart.

All of a sudden, Wayne’s eyes well up with tears, but he doesn’t shed them. He hasn’t been this vulnerable with another person in years. He couldn’t even do it sober.

Roland kisses his lips again, feels Wayne’s heart beating under his hand. “You ever need this again,” he says. “Just ask.”

Wayne feels a flood of relief hearing that.

Roland smiles at him, and Wayne smiles back.        

They won’t talk about this night afterward. Or repeat it. But their relationship will feel different—more intimate, more full of trust, safer. They can say whatever they want to each other, knowing they can get away with it.

* * *

 November, 1980

* * *

Wayne only makes it a couple hours searching for Julie in the dark before he stops, beyond exhausted and still reeling from the discovery of Will’s corpse. He’s in an open field now, out of the woods, and he almost collapses into the grass like a sack of stones.

“You done?” comes a familiar voice behind him, cutting through the silence.

Wayne looks over his shoulder and finds Roland standing a few paces away, hands on his hips, looking tired but in far better shape than he is.

“What are you doing here?” Wayne says, facing forward again and closing his eyes, breathing white clouds into the cold air.

Roland draws closer, coming up to Wayne’s right, lowering his voice. “If you think I’m about to leave your stubborn ass out here alone, in the middle of the night, after what we just found—you’re an idiot.”

Wayne opens his eyes and looks at the sky, the stars like spilled salt in the blackness. It’s quiet out here in a way the city never is. For a split second, it reminds him of his weeks spent alone in the jungles of Vietnam. He would barely sleep there, afraid of the enemy and wild animals devouring him if he went too deep into unconsciousness. It wasn’t easy, but he managed. Right now, after forty-two hours of straight work, he’s ready to pass out where he stands.  

Roland touches his elbow, bringing him back to the present. “Let me take you home,” he says. “We can come back in the morning.”

Wayne nods, letting Roland push him forward with a gentle hand on his back, not asking why they aren’t turning around to go the way they came.

Wayne dozes in the car, head pressed against the cool glass of the passenger window. Roland drives with the radio turned off and stays quiet. When they arrive at Wayne’s apartment complex, Roland parks and guides Wayne to his front door, watching him pull his keys out of his pocket and look for the right one. Roland’s ready to turn around and go back to the car as soon as Wayne gets his door open, but Wayne says, “Why don’t you stay here?” as he goes inside.

Roland follows him because it’s two-thirty in the morning, and he doesn’t feel like driving home or being alone right now either.

Roland eyes the couch for a second after Wayne disappears down the corridor leading to the bedroom. Then, he follows his partner, watching as the taller man sheds his blazer and his belt. Roland stops in the bedroom doorway, hands in his pockets, not sure what to do or what Wayne needs from him right now, if anything. Wayne leaves his shirt, tie, pants, jacket, and belt in a heap on the floor and crawls into his queen sized bed like it takes the last of his energy to do it.

“You wanna sleep in here, it’s fine,” says Wayne, already on his side with his back to the doorway.

Roland undresses without speaking, leaving his underwear and his t-shirt on like Wayne did. He slips into the empty half of the bed and turns out the lamp. He’s never been invited to share a bed with a man before, though it happened a few times during the war. The way Wayne extended the invitation makes it feel like no big to-do, not at all strange.

They lie there in the silent dark for a minute, Roland on his back and Wayne on his side, Roland careful not to touch the other man.

“I thought I was done laying eyes on dead children,” says Wayne, somehow still awake despite his current location.

Roland doesn’t know what to say to that. “He’s lucky you’re the one who went looking for him. Without you, it might’ve taken the rest of us days or even weeks.”

“Luck doesn’t enter into this situation.”

Roland closes his eyes and sees the boy Will, his hands folded on his chest in futile prayer. He opens his eyes again, unable to see the ceiling in the dark.

“We have to tell the parents in the morning,” says Wayne.

“I know,” says Roland, the dread like a bottomless well in his belly.

“You think the girl’s alive?”

“I don’t know.” Roland pauses. “The odds aren’t good.”

Wayne doesn’t respond.

After he hesitates for a while, Roland rolls toward Wayne and wraps his arm around the other man’s waist, resting his head against Wayne’s back. At first, he feels Wayne’s body tense. Roland’s afraid he’s crossed the line, that Wayne will throw him off and throw him out. But instead, Wayne stays still, and after a moment, he relaxes, adjusting himself a little and pushing back against Roland with the softest pressure.

In a minute, Roland can feel that Wayne has gone under. Sleep comes to Roland more gradually, as he holds onto Wayne and tunes to the other man’s body. He can smell Wayne’s scent in a way he never has before, feel the lean and sinewy muscle in his torso, his slow breath and his warmth. Somehow, this is more intimate to Roland than all the sex he’s had in recent memory. He realizes the gravity of Wayne allowing him this, of Wayne making himself this vulnerable to Roland. Wayne Hays is not a man who asks for comfort, but tonight, he’s letting Roland give it to him.

They sleep until the birds are singing outside the window and bright yellow sunlight streams down across the bed. Later than either of them planned on.

The following week, they roll up on the Woodard shoot-out, and Roland takes his belated bullet to the leg. When Wayne finally gets to see him in the hospital the next morning, Roland’s doped up on morphine and tired despite having slept under sedation for so many hours. But he has the presence of mind to ask Wayne: “You sure you’re okay?”

Wayne just nods, smiling some kind of smile Roland’s never seen on him before. Deep and warm and glad.

It surprises Roland when Wayne leans down and kisses his hairline, fingers just touching the top of Roland’s hand where it rests on the bed. “You’ll be all right,” Wayne says, voice husky.

Roland looks up at him, blinking in wonder. Maybe he’s dreaming. Maybe it’s the drugs.

But then Wayne, who’s looking at him with a tenderness that Roland has never seen directed at him before, leans over again and presses a small kiss to his lips. Their eyes meet just as Wayne lifts his head away, and understanding passes between them without their even being conscious of it. This is their war moment. The only gesture that can contain the multitude of feelings both men have about surviving the violence. A kiss. 

* * *

  June, 1990

* * *

Wayne follows Roland from the scene of Tom’s apparent suicide, already unused to driving a second car on the job. Roland stops at the first liquor store he sees, and Wayne knows: this is bad. He parks next to Roland and gets out of the car but doesn’t follow him inside, unsure what to do or say. When Roland comes back out of the store, he’s got a plastic bag in one hand and a case of twelve beers under his other arm.

They share a grim look.

“If you’re going to stick around, you’re going to keep your mouth shut about what just happened and how I choose to deal with it,” Roland says.

Wayne just nods.

They get back on the road, and Roland leads them to his house, which looks different on the inside than it did when Wayne and Amelia came over for dinner. Wayne notices the absence of Lori’s things: her car missing from the driveway, photos of her and Roland gone. Roland hasn’t said a word about her since that dinner, and Wayne’s heart sinks a little when he realizes that she must be gone. Roland didn’t even pause during their work on the case to have a bad day over the break-up. He didn’t ask for any sympathy.

Roland takes a few beers out of the case and puts the rest in his refrigerator. He leaves a can on the kitchen counter for Wayne without offering it to him. Wayne takes it and cracks it open, before following Roland into the living room.

Roland kicks the coffee table hard, yelling “FUCK!”

Wayne jumps a little, not expecting the outburst.

“God fucking damn it,” Roland says, pacing around the table and downing a few swallows of beer.

Wayne stands at the edge of the room, grimacing. He doesn’t know what to do for Roland now. He doesn’t know what to do about this case, which now seems to be spiraling out of their control once again.

“Roland,” Wayne says. “I’m sorry.”

But he doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. Suspecting Tom in the first place? Letting Roland interrogate Tom? Not keeping an eye on Tom after the interrogation?

Wayne doesn’t feel guilty for Tom’s death, just sad for Roland, who had apparently helped Tom get sober and struck up a temporary friendship with him during Wayne and Roland’s 10 year hiatus. Wayne’s been pushing away his thoughts and feelings about Roland befriending Tom since they started working on the reopened case—but now, they rise to the surface like something cut loose from its anchor, the kind of thing he could never openly admit to anyone. Jealousy. What he feels is jealousy. Roland was his partner, his best friend. What kind of a replacement for Wayne is Tom Purcell? Wayne is aware it’s an irrational jealousy. He let himself get swept up in marriage and fatherhood these last ten years, not to mention shame and resentment about his demotion, and he didn’t hold on to Roland the way he should’ve. Maybe if he had, Roland never would’ve bothered investing as much time and attention as he did into Tom. Nevertheless, Wayne feels jealous.

And in the secret pit of that jealousy lies the dark curiosity and dread that sprouted as soon as Wayne and Roland discovered Tom’s struggle with homosexual desire. Did Roland take his friendship with Tom as far as he and Wayne had got? Did Roland go even further, into sexual territory? Did Tom Purcell have Roland in a way Wayne never did? And does Roland love Tom even now more than he loves Wayne?

“He was fine,” Roland says, standing still, his empty beer can on the coffee table and his hands on his hips. He’s looking down, face creased with emotion. “He was fine before I brought this shit back on him. I killed him. I killed him for nothing.”

“Roland—”

“He was innocent.” Roland looks up at Wayne with a sharpness in his eyes that gleams through the anguish. “I knew he was innocent all along, and I should’ve trusted my instincts.”

“We did our jobs like anyone else would’ve. We didn’t even formally charge him. It’s not our fault he did this.”

“You go ahead and tell yourself that if it makes you feel better,” Roland says, almost sneering. He goes back into the kitchen and picks up one of the beers on the counter, cracking it open and chugging it.

Wayne watches him, his own cold beer still unsipped in his hand.

Roland throws the empty beer can hard somewhere off to his left and opens a third.

“Hey,” Wayne says, keeping his voice down as he takes a few steps toward the other man. “Will you slow down? Will you just—take a seat for a minute?”

“You don’t want to watch me get plastered, you’re welcome to take a fucking hike,” Roland replies.

Wayne decides to risk provoking his friend’s wrath. He slowly draws closer to him, putting his beer on the kitchen island, looking at Roland with sad, hound dog eyes. “It’s not your fault,” he says, his tone gentle. “Roland. You couldn’t have known.”

Roland pounds back the rest of his third beer and throws that empty can in some other direction, refusing to look at Wayne.

Wayne just keeps getting closer, taking his time, reading Roland’s body language. “You didn’t know he was going to do that. It’s not your fault. He wouldn’t want you to feel guilty.”

Roland clicks his tongue, shakes his head, and looks away. His eyes glisten. He bites his lower lip. He’s got his hands on his hips again.

Wayne finally reaches him, the two men standing toe to toe, and he begins to raise his arms a little. “Come here,” he says.

Roland still won’t look at him and doesn’t move.

Wayne slips his arms around Roland’s torso in the spaces his bent elbows leave and pulls him into a hug. Roland collapses into it pretty quick, clutching at Wayne and muffling a sob as he presses his face into Wayne’s shoulder.

They stand there in the kitchen, hugging each other, for a while. Wayne even starts to stroke Roland’s back a little. He truly does feel sorry for his partner, and if Tom was innocent, Wayne feels sorry for him too.

They’re drunk on the couch by noon, having finished off the beer case and broken out the SoCo. They order a pizza for lunch, and as they wait for the delivery, Wayne blurts out his burning question.

“Were you and Tom lovers? Ex-lovers?”

Roland looks at him like the question is either crazy or offensive. “No,” he says. “Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know,” says Wayne, unashamed at the sense of relief he feels. “I just thought maybe—”

“I’m not gay.”

“Never said you were.”

“Then I don’t understand the question.”

“You and me…. I don’t know. I guess I always thought there was a chance you swung both ways. And Tom was…. We both know his history. You were friends.”

“Yeah,” says Roland. “We were friends. I didn’t know he went to fucking gay conversion therapy support groups at church. We weren’t that close.”

“You mean you weren’t close to him the way we were,” says Wayne.

Roland’s quiet before he answers. “No. I’ve never been friends with someone the way I am with you.”

Wayne turns his head to look at Roland, and Roland stares back at him. They don’t move until the doorbell rings.

Roland pays for the pizza and leaves it on the kitchen island, while Wayne lingers on the couch. Roland returns to him, standing right in front of him and just looking down at Wayne with some kind of expression Wayne can’t interpret.

“What?” Wayne says.

“I just can’t believe you actually thought I could have a bond with another man that lives up to the one I had with you,” says Roland. “The shit we’ve seen. The shit we’ve done. Together.”

Wayne looks up at him, at once humbled and shocked, caught off guard by Roland’s level of sober honesty. He knows they have some kind of connection that’s always come easy, which is rare amongst men their age, but they’ve had their differences too. The race thing—always bound to get between them one way or another, even if Wayne has always felt safe with Roland and Roland has never said anything remotely cruel or even disrespectful to him. He’s not surprised at all that he hasn’t bonded with another man the way he did with Roland, but he always expected in the back of his mind that Roland—a people person, a white man in a sea of white men, a well-liked guy—would have himself a best friend off the job or even someone on the job who came after Wayne’s demotion.

“I wanted you to stay in ’80,” Roland says. “You’re the one who left. Acting like it didn’t matter if we quit being partners. I didn’t even want another one after you.”

Wayne swallows, at a loss for what to say. He never meant for ten years to go by without staying close to Roland. It felt like that time passed while he wasn’t looking. He didn’t mean to make Roland think that what they had was meaningless. Before Amelia came along, Roland was the most important person in Wayne’s life.

“Tom was a good guy,” says Roland, choking up. “But he wasn’t you. No one is.”

Wayne feels his throat tighten, his eyes water.

Roland leans down and plants his hand on Wayne’s chest, right over his heart. He kisses Wayne, and his lips are full of loneliness, nostalgia, and longing. He lifts his head, and Wayne just looks up at him, then covers Roland’s hand on his chest with his own hand before Roland can pull away. He can’t bring himself to apologize for the decade of neglect.      

The rest of the day passes in a haze of drinking, napping, smoking, and sulking. They don’t answer the phone. They don’t leave the house. About an hour before dinner time, Wayne calls Amelia and tells her he’ll be staying with Roland overnight but doesn’t explain why. 

The two men lie next to each other in Roland’s bed that night, and they don’t think about the last time they did this in 1980.

“I missed you,” Roland says, in the safety of the dark, the words slow on his tongue. “Purple Haze.”

“Missed you too,” Wayne replies. And this time it’s him who curls up around Roland’s body and holds him until they fall asleep.

* * *

 December, 2015

* * *

Winter tip toes into Fayetteville so quietly, they don’t notice the seasons changing until they look up one day and discover it’s cold enough for a heavy coat. Roland starts bringing Wayne over to his place on the nights he doesn’t stay at Wayne’s, mostly because he needs to mind the dogs more but also because he loves the feel of his own house in the wintertime, how quiet it gets on his property when it snows or the way it smells after a cool rain.

One night, they sit on the couch side by side, a knit blanket spread over their laps, and drink hot tea, which is becoming something of a ritual. They leave the TV off and share silence. Wayne keeps both his hands pressed against his mug, enjoying the heat against his skin. Roland used to grumble about switching from liquor to tea in the evenings, but he quit once he noticed he does sleep better if he stops drinking alcohol after eight o’clock.

They sip on their tea and look at the string lights twinkling on the Douglas fir they picked out together last weekend. They haven’t added ornaments yet, but they will in the next couple days. Roland figures it will be a good brain activity for Wayne.

“Becca’s coming home for Christmas,” Wayne says, unsure if he’s already told Roland.

“That’s great, man,” Roland replies, smiling at him. At this point, he’s well-aware of how much Wayne misses his daughter. Roland wishes she would call Wayne more.

“I know it makes sense to have the big family dinner at Henry’s place—but I think it would be nice to do something here too. Maybe on Christmas Eve or something. Could be just the two of us or Becca could come over if she wants. I think Henry and Heather usually do their own thing with the kids that night.”

“You trying to rope me into cooking Christmas Eve dinner?”

Wayne grins. “Not at all. It’s entirely up to you. We could order takeout.”

They fall silent again, and Roland nurses his tea, looking at the tree and feeling emotional about the fact that for the first time in many years, he won’t be alone on Christmas. Thanksgiving a couple weeks ago made him cry, sitting at the dinner table in Henry’s house surrounded by the Hayes family and several of Henry’s in-laws. It was something he’d always wanted, ever since he was a kid, and never had until that night. 

“Roland?” Wayne says.

“Yeah, pal,” Roland replies.

“I love you.”

Roland stares at Wayne, dumbfounded. He smiles a fragile smile, his eyes misty. “I love you too, Wayne,” he says. “Always have.”

Wayne smiles back at him, a warm sensation of tenderness in his chest and his belly. He can count on one hand the number of people who truly loved him during the last forty years of his life, and three of them are his wife and kids. Roland is one of the others. And considering the mistakes Wayne made in handling their friendship, he’s unbelievably lucky that Roland is here with him now and still loves him.

Wayne gets up from his chair without speaking and takes Roland’s hand in his, leading him upstairs to the master bedroom. They lie down on the bed together, facing each other on their sides, looking at each other in silence. Seeing each other past the marks of age that time has left on their faces. Wayne covers Roland’s hand with his own between them. They don’t need to speak anymore tonight. They’ve said all they need to say.

Roland leans in to plant a kiss on Wayne’s brow, holding it there for a long beat with his eyes closed. When he lays his head down again, Wayne moves closer and kisses Roland’s lips, gentle as can be. A tear rolls down the creases of Roland’s cheek, and Wayne wipes through its track with his thumb. Roland lays his hand on Wayne’s waist, and Wayne starts to stroke the side of Roland’s head, smoothing back what little hair is left there.   

The thing is, it’s never been about men. If either one of them was somebody else, things wouldn’t have gone the way they did. They were never looking for each other, never looking for the love or friendship they had. It found them, and they were willing to open themselves to it.  

They fall asleep touching, not quite holding each other. They dream of being young again, together on the road somewhere, nothing but good times ahead.


End file.
